THE DEDUCTIVE METHOD. 535 



laws of the causes which determine that class of phe- 

 nomena; and those causes are human actions, toge- 

 ther with the general outward circumstances under 

 the dominion of which mankind are placed, and which 

 constitute man's position in this world. The Deduc- 

 tive Method, applied to social phenomena, must 

 begin, therefore, by investigating, or must suppose 

 to have been already investigated, the laws of human 

 action, and those properties of outward things by 

 which the actions of human beings in society are 

 determined. Some of these general truths will natu- 

 rally be obtained by observation and experiment, 

 others by deduction: the more complex laws of 

 human action, for example, may be deduced from the 

 simpler ones ; but the simple or elementary laws will 

 always, and necessarily, have been obtained by a 

 directly inductive process. 



To ascertain, then, the laws of each separate 

 cause which takes a share in producing the effect, is 

 the first desideratum of the Deductive Method. To 

 know what the causes are, which must be subjected to 

 this process of study, may or may not be difficult. 

 In the case last mentioned, this first condition is 

 of easy fulfilment. That social phenomena depended 

 upon the acts and mental impressions of human 

 beings, never could have been a matter of any doubt, 

 however imperfectly it may have been known either 

 by what laws those impressions and actions are 

 governed, or to what social consequences their laws 

 naturally lead. Neither, again, after physical science 

 had attained a certain development, could there be 

 any real doubt where to look for the laws on which 

 the phenomena of life depend, since they must be the 

 mechanical and chemical laws of the solid and fluid 

 substances composing the organised body and the 



